


Tis not the devil's crest

by whoistorule



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-02
Updated: 2012-10-02
Packaged: 2017-11-15 12:09:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/527152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoistorule/pseuds/whoistorule
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>College theater AU</p><p>When one thought of the words "actor" and "Stan Baratheon," one didn't generally put them together.  And yet in order to complete his degree, it was required that Stan fulfill a creative credit.  Robert had done acting, and Ren, only a freshman, was also an accomplished performer.  And no one calls Stan a coward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tis not the devil's crest

When one thought of the words "actor" and "Stan Baratheon," one didn't generally put them together.  And yet in order to complete his degree, it was required that Stan fulfill a creative credit.  Robert had done acting, and Ren, only a freshman, was also an accomplished performer.  And no one calls Stan a coward.  So here he stands, trying out for Measure for Measure along with the rest of the social set.  Being honor board chair of Iota Tao gives his name some weight, but Robert was President before him, and Ren, only a freshman, looks poised to become President as well.  Just another insult to add to the list.  Another thing his brothers did that was denied to him.

The director's some foreign fellow named Professor Rhllor, but his student director's one of those Theatre Types with a funny accent he thinks is feigned and a red beret perched on her head.  She's always got a cigarette in one hand, or a lighter when she's indoors, and when she looks at him it gives Stan the willies, like she's looking through him and not at him.  He reads his monologue, one of Angelo's, his tone direct, without flair or flourish, his arms wooden, gripping the paper so tightly it begins to tear.  "Let's write good angel on the devil's horn:' 'Tis not the devil's crest," he finishes sullenly.  When he's through he exits without a bow.

\------

A late night call wakes him, his phone's ring blaring through his dorm room. (Stan never did see the point of ringtones.  Phones should make a ringing noise; it's what they were meant to do.  Anything else was a lie.). "You've got the call back," chatters an unfamiliar voice at the other end of the phone.

"Who is this?"

"Melisandre of course.  I wish I could tell you the part's yours already but I suppose we should go by the book.  But I've never seen anyone read like you before! So straight to the point.  You spoke those words like they were truth, Stan.  It was something to behold.  You've got natural talent."

Something to behold.  Natural talent. Stan very much doubts it. With a harrumph, he clenches the phone tighter to his ear.  "I'm not," he says simply, "my brothers are the ones who act."

"Tsch, your brothers.  Ren's audition was so false.  He's a wisp in the wind.  You're solid oak."

Stan juts out his chin.  Solid oak.  He knows Ren’s false as a cat, but what does this stranger know?  "This is flattery," he replies gruffly. "I don't like flattery."

"It's the truth.  The part is yours to play."

"Oh yeah?  Who else is called back?"

"You," she says defiantly, then, "Ren."

"I thought you said he was false."

"The director liked him. Tsch. But he's sort of a vague guy.  I'm the one with direction.  And you were born to play this part.  I'll see you tomorrow."

She hangs up and Stan stares at his phone.  He had forgotten to ask how she got his number. 

\------

CAST LIST

Duke……………. Lucas Tyrell, u/s Jon Snow

Isabella…………. Melisandre

Mariana………….. Margy Tyrell, u/s Sally Florent

Angelo………….. Ren Baratheon, u/s Stan Baratheon

Stan stops reading, his fists curled tight.  He didn’t want the part anyway, or that's what he'd thought, but Melisandre had been so sure on the phone.  He was the older brother.  He was a senior.  Ren had three more years to be the lead, and this was Stan's last shot.  But there Ren stood, smug and smiling as ever, one arm looped lazily around the waist of the current Kappa Lambda president, Margy Tyrell, her brother Lucas flanking Ren's other side.  Robert's girlfriend had been president of Kappa Lambda as well, but Sally Florent was a non-ranking member, on only one board, and it was finance, not social.  But Sally had been dutiful and faithful as a girlfriend could be, and he treats her with the same duty in kind.

"The part should be mine," he grunts at Ren as he passes, angry with himself for being angry in the first place.  "You stole it from me."

"I didn't cast it, brother," Ren says with an easy laugh, Margy and Lucas following suit, "Is it my fault if the Professor has an eye for real talent. You should be grateful to be my understudy, at least our name got you that much."

Their laughs echo through the hallway, following him as he stalks off.

\--

There's a knock at his door just past midnight, and when he pulls the door open, there she stands.  Red trench coat, red beret; she comes in without asking and perches on the leather couch, a cigarette already in hand.

"You don't mind if I smoke, do you?" But it's not a question, no sooner are the words out of her mouth than her cigarette is lit already, dangling between her curved lips.  Stan stares at her; milk white limbs in an artless jumble, red hair pouring over her back, lit cigarette flickering between two long crooked fingers, and then back up to her apple slice smile.

"Ey, Stan, what's the commotion?" grumbles Davey, the smell of smoke bringing him out of his own cave of a room.  And then she's up again, holding out her hand with practiced disdain, as it if had been Davey who had so rudely interrupted her evening, and not she who walked in the door only a few moments ago.  "Melisandre," she offers, "nice tats."

Davey mumbles at that as he always does.  Truth was, it was Stan who made him get the tattoos.  'L I A R' across his knuckles after Stan caught him spying on Iota Tau from Delta Sigma.  Davey had confessed and turned double agent, and had been Stan's roommate ever since.  Shaking his head to clear the memories, Stan can hear her explaining something or other to Davey.

"So you see," she continues, the amber glow of the cigarette waving with her erratic gesticulations, "We're going to need this room for rehearsals."

Davey was nodding and half out the door, one red-talented hand firmly at his back, guiding him gone.  "I'll be at Marya's," he calls out, and then the door clicks shut, leaving Stan alone with the peculiar Melisandre.

"Now we're going to start with Act II Scene III, Angelo and Isabella--"

" _What_ are you doing here," Stan manages to grunt out, his teeth gritted, his jaw clenched.

"Rehearsing.  Now as I was saying, this scene is the first time Angelo and Isabella--"

"But I'm not Angelo!  Ren is.  Your director chose him."

At that, Melisandre laughed, tipping her ever-present cigarette into one of Davey's discarded coffee mugs.  "Tsch.  He is nothing.  A perfumed flower.  False as the day is long.  Angelo is a man of conviction, he sees the things he wants and he takes them.  He wants to reclaim a city of sin, and in doing so falls into sin himself.  He'll rule over the corrupt, the wanton, with a steady iron fist."  Her coat's slipped off, folded against the leather sofa, leaving her arms bare but for two thin red straps on the mounds of her shoulders.  A silver cross winking with red gems nestles between her breasts, and Stan grunts.  Melisandre takes no notice.  There's another cigarette, already lit, dangling between her fingers as she tosses him a worn paperback.  "Pay me heed, Stan.  The role of Angelo will be yours," her red tipped claws stroke a line against his cheek, how did she get so close, and then she's gone again, flicking ash behind her like breadcrumbs, rearranging his furniture.  "You sit there, I'll enter from here," the silver and deep red glared at him from her chest, "Let's begin."

\-------

"What's that?" she asks late one night, throwing her book down on his cluttered desk, her nails clawing a line across his notes.

"Iota Tau honor board notes, they aren't for you to see."

"Oh aren't they?  Tsch.  I see everything."  Her skirt is short tonight, some wispy frothy fabric that seems to reveal more than it covers, and it rides up as she hitches herself on his desk, stubbing her cigarette out against his fraternity paddle.

Stan meets her eyes, despite the heave of her breasts and the white peak of her thighs.  "Don't," he says, eyes stern, "those are important."

"Why?" the cross of her legs sends her skirt nudging higher. Thin fingers reach out and wrap around his tie, sending his steady feet stumbling towards her.  The release of her hands gives him time to straighten his tie, and her to light another cigarette.  Sharp red heels pinch the back of his legs trapping him there, thigh tight between the desk and the point of her toe.  "They don't value you, they don't take you seriously, I do."  Her kiss is sharp and tastes like cigarettes and cheap merlot, her hands soft and fluid against his cheek, angling him towards her.  "Alas, alas!  Why all the souls that were forfeit once; and he that might the vantage best took found out the remedy."  Her legs wrapped tight round his waist, her lines are whispered in his ear, each breath meant to send shivers down his spine.  Stan only frowns.  "How would you be, if He, which is the top of judgment, should but judge you as you are?  O, think on that; And mercy then will breathe within your lips," her kiss again, her claws tight in his hair, yanking his head to her, "Like man new made."

"Be content, fair maid," he says, voice as even as a funeral march, "It is the law, not I condemn your brother: Were he my kinsman, brother or son, it should be thus with him: he must die tomorrow."  With his words, she throws her head back in reverie, exposing the high swell of her breasts, the clean line of her throat.  Stan ignores it.  "No one wants to hear me do this, Melisandre.  No one wants to see me act."

"They're fools, the lot of them, they can't see how good you are.  Angelo is a man of certainty, until Isabella comes along.  Even then, he is stern, he is unforgiving.  She's the temptress see, she's the one with talk of lips and tongue."  Her hands, surprisingly empty, grip his and pull them to her skirt, dragging it up her hips.  She leaves them there, pressing grooves into her hipbone as she fumbles with his belt, her voice heavy against his ear.  "Angelo is a man of action.  When Isabella makes herself his weakness, tsch," her fingers, surprisingly cold despite the constant flickering warmth at their end, stroke his cock slowly, to the cadence of her voice.  "He takes what he wants, as men do.  As you'll do."  It's shocking, what her fingers are doing to him.  She's one hand on him now, the smooth of her varnished nails alternating against the soft press of her skin, her other hand's between her own skirt, stroking her cunt.  When Sally does this it's with a groan of frustration and businesslike efficiency, but Melisandre makes it into an act of worship, her breath catching, the bump of her breast knocking her studded cross into Stan's chest.

"This part is yours, Stan," she says, nudging towards him, her wet cunt gripping his cock as she slides onto him, thrusts against him.  She's the one fucking him, her heels sliding off her pointed feet as she clenches her thighs around his waist.  "Only yours."

\---------------

"She's been coming here a lot lately, man, that's all I'm saying."  The sharp grip of Davey's hand around his coffee mug makes the letters stand out more, the black ink stark against his calloused flesh.  "Even Sally's starting to notice."  He's cleaning again, coffee mugs and wine glasses and cigarette butts; everywhere there are cigarette butts, constant tiny reminders of her presence. 

Stan grunts and leans back against the sofa, watching the flurry of Davey's tidying.  "Let people say what they want.  I don't care.  If they don't have the courage to say it to my face--"

"I know, man, I know, but at least take Sally out for a night.  Give yourself a break from all that red."

"We eat dinner together daily, I fail to see what taking her out would accomplish."

"Not like that, Stan," Davey laughs, tossing another butt in his trash bag.  "Take her _out_ out, like you do with your red girl."

Stan's eyes narrow.  "I don't take Melisandre anywhere.  She comes to me."

"Well then let Sally come to you once in a while, too.  The girl's devoted to you, it's the least you could do."

"Only because she can't do better."  Stan knows it's the truth, Sally had told him so herself.

"I'm telling you, man, if you don't fuck her soon she's going to start doing worse.  Take a few nights off from your red chick.  She worries me, anyway."

A frown grows on his face.  Melisandre had been loyal to a fault, devoting her time an energy to getting him prepared for the performance.  "Melisandre believes in me.  She doesn't think I'm third best."

Davey sighs and shakes his head, the leather seats groaning as he slumps down next to Stan.  "Whatever you say, Stan, but I'm telling you.  This chick has crazy eyes."

\----------

"It is time," she announces, swanning into Stan's room, his key hanging just under the cross around her neck.  Stan can't quite remember when he gave it to her, it's like it's always been there, between god and the high curve of her breast, taunting him.  "No, Davey, stay.  For this, we need you."

Davey sits back down from where he stood, used to the routine by now.  Melisandre arrives past midnight, and Davey leaves for Marya's, or the Iota Tau house, or on some nights Kappa Lambda; it was a well-choreographed dance.

"Time for what, Melly," Davey asks, running his thumb over the worn ink of his tattoos, a habit Stan knew meant he was unsure.

"Tsch, that is not my name," Melisandre says, scattering ash on the carpet.  "It is time for us to ensure that it is my, _our,_ " she corrects, her smile oily, "Stan on stage Thursday night, and not Ren.  Eliminate Ren and we're sure to take out Lucas and Margy as well, annoying twits."

Davey glances sidelong at Stan, and he nods his approval.

“Stan, I don’t know if this is such a good plan, Ren’s spent weeks rehearsing too,” Davey ventures, the moral question evident in his tone.

“ _I_ have spent weeks rehearsing, Ren barely knows his lines.”

“This is Stan’s part, Davey.”  Quick as a cat, she’s behind Stan, her body thrown indelicately over the arm of the sofa, her hands possessive around his shoulders.   “Stan needs you.  I can’t get into the Iota Tau house on my own.”

“Stan…” Davey looks at him with pleading eyes, and he wrenches his gaze away, shaking off Melisandre’s grip.  “Just do it Davey,” he says, crossing the room, his door slamming shut behind him with a bang.

\--------

“You’ve got to listen to me, Stan, I told you this chick is crazy.”

Stan sighs and looks up from his paperwork.  Everything had gone to plan.  Ren and the Tyrell twits were out, Stan and Sally and some freshman named Snow were in.  Curtain went up Thursday, and Stan was fully prepared.  Melisandre had assured him of that.  “What, Davey, I’m busy.”

“Stan she set his fucking room on fire!”

“Ren’s alive, isn’t he?”

“His lungs are damaged, he’s got burns on his hands, he’s in the fucking hospital.  Stan.  Stan listen to me, this Melisandre, she’s not good for you.”

Stan leans his head against his hands, rubbing the spot where a headache blossomed, bright and burning, distracting as one of Melisandre’s cigarettes.

“He’ll be fine Davey.  And I already knew.  Melisandre told me her plan before I okayed it.”

“You knew?  How could you le-, I mean, she’s, Christ, Stan!  Ren’s your brother!”

Stan’s voice grew stern, his jaw clenched tight, his neck straining.  “Ren’s stolen everything from me but for this.  And this?  This is _mine._ I won’t give it up to Ren.  Not this time.”

Davey sighs and stands, his thumb rubbing his inked fingers.  “I don’t like this, Stan.  And I don’t like her.”

\--------

“Say you so? then I shall pose you quickly.  Which had you rather, that the most just law now took your brother's life; or, to redeem him, give up your body to such sweet uncleanness as she that he hath stain'd?” Stan’s voice is direct and monotonous as ever.  It booms through the outdoor amphitheater, the meter more of a military march.

“Sir, believe this, I had rather give my body than my soul.”  Around him, Melisandre circles, her cross glinting in the sharp lights of the stage, casting thin drops of red light across her pale breasts, like blood, like fire.

“I talk not of your soul: our compell'd sins.  Stand more for number than for accompt.” 

“How say you?”

That’s when the first firework goes off.  Bright and loud and putridly green, it crashes across the sky, throwing him off balance.

“Nay I’ll not warrant that; for I can speak against the thing I say—” This time three fireworks stop him, first the crackling blasts, then the flashes of the same sickly green light.

“LINGERIE PARTY AT KAPPA LAMBDA,” A megaphone groans from the top of the amphitheater, “AND FREE BEER.”  Stan can hear the murmurs of the crowd, debating their options.  Stay here and watch Stan Baratheon trek through Measure for Measure or go get drunk with mostly naked sorority girls.  If Stan squints, he can just make out the curling brown hair of Lucas Tyrell holding the megaphone.  “THE ONLY LINGERIE PARTY OF THE YEAR, COME TO KAPPA LAMBDA.”  More fireworks, then, and the slow trickle of audience members crawling up the sides of the amphitheater.

“Cowards!” Stan calls out at them “False, lying scum!”  But it’s too late, the crowd has turned to flood as the theater begins to empty.  Melisandre grasps him sharply by the lapels and tugs him backstage while the sky vomits green light.

“We’ll get them tomorrow night, Stan, they can’t have a party every night.”

“They can and they will.  Ren will take this from me, like he does every other thing that’s mine.”

“Not me,” Melisandre says,  the clench of her red claws painting his cheek with beads of blood, “Not me.  This part is yours, Stan.  This play, this school, it’s all yours.  You just have to reach out and take it.” 


End file.
